Gendered informal gold trading in Indonesia: Case studies from Central Kalimantan

Abstract

This paper examines the gendered aspects of informal gold trading along the artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) value chain in Indonesia. Indonesian law allows ASGM to be carried out by individuals, groups, families or cooperatives with limited investment and capital. However, only a very small percentage of ASGM activities are licensed, resulting in gold being traded predominantly within informal networks. The authors carried out a study of artisanal gold mining in two mining sites in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Primary data from the field were collected during COVID-19 in the form of semi-structured interviews and participatory data collection methods such as gender mapping and business analysis. This paper argues that gold trading in informal, artisanal, and small-scale gold mining is gendered as a function of unequal power relations between women and men who operate in different parts of the ASGM value chain network.